1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for providing a web content provision service using a subscriber terminal in an exchange system which is configured to be capable of controlling an Internet protocol (IP) terminal like a legacy terminal by receiving user information from the Internet protocol terminal.
2. Related Art
Due to information communication industry development, the Internet has rapidly become popular and there have been requests for various Internet services. As a result, Internet protocol (IP) networks have been remarkably developed in performance and service aspects and requests for more various services have continuously come to the front of a market. Further, it has been required for a private branch exchange (PBX) centered around voice communications to provide additional services for data communications. There has arisen a movement to provide additional customized Web contents as well as a voice through an extension terminal of the private branch exchange (PBX), such as a digital phone, to meet the above requests.
In order to obtain desired Web contents from a Web site connected to an Internet protocol (IP) network, a user can gain access to the Web site via a transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) socket using his/her computer system capable of local area network (LAN) communications, and access the desired Web contents using a Web browser installed in the computer system, as well known to those skilled in the art. However, the computer system is a digital data transmission device rather than an extension subscriber terminal for voice communications. Therefore, it is impossible to be provided with Web contents without a terminal device such as the computer system.
As a result, because a user cannot be provided with desired Web contents from a Web server using his/her subscriber terminal for voice communications, accommodated in an exchange system, the user must use a local area network card and computer to obtain the desired Web contents from the Web server.
I have found that receiving Web content or Internet information using a telephone can be inconvenient or difficult to accomplish. Efforts have been made to implement improvements related to a communication among telephones and the World Wide Web or Internet.
Exemplars of recent efforts in the art include U.S. Pat. No. 6,335,928 to Herrmann et al., entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ACCESSING AND INTERACTING AN INTERNET WEB PAGE USING A TELECOMMUNICATIONS DEVICE, issued on Jan. 1, 2002, U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,762 to Luzeski et al., entitled UNIVERSAL MESSAGING SYSTEM PROVIDING INTEGRATED VOICE, DATA AND FAX MESSAGING SERVICES TO PC/WEB-BASED CLIENTS, INCLUDING A SESSION MANAGER FOR MAINTAINING A SESSION BETWEEN A MESSAGING PLATFORM AND THE WEB-BASED CLIENTS, issued on Jun. 11, 2002, U.S. Pat. No. 6,411,615 to DeGoia Jr et al., entitled EMBEDDED WEB PHONE MODULE, issued on Jun. 25, 2002, U.S. Pat. No. 6,393,014 to Daly et al., entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING DATA COMMUNICATION WITH A MOBILE STATION, issued on May 21, 2002, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,339,593 to Kikinis, entitled NETWORK TELEPHONE INTERFACE SYSTEMS BETWEEN DATA NETWORK TELEPHONY AND PLAIN OLD TELEPHONE SERVICE INCLUDING CTI ENHANCEMENT IN THE DATA NETWORK, issued on Jan. 15, 2002.
While these recent efforts provide advantages, I note that they fail to adequately provide a system and method for providing Web content provision service using subscriber terminal in exchange system.